Robert (Bob) Solo was a faculty member in the Department from 1966 until his retirement in 1987.
Bob received an undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard in 1938, and then served in the Navy during World War II. Following the war, he studied at the London School of Economics, and wrote scripts for television dramas in the early 1950s. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University in 1952. After several teaching positions, he left academe to work in economic development, first for the National Planning Association in Washington, D.C., then with FOMENTO in Puerto Rico and with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in France.
He was an active researcher, publishing a number of books. A topic of particular interest to Bob was economic development and technological change, which he analyzed from what would today be called an interdisciplinary perspective, taking into account the joint evolution over time of political, social, and economic institutions. Looking at issues from this broad institutional perspective that included political, social, and philosophical elements was characteristic of all his work, an approach he argued was essential. For example, one such book is Economic Organizations and Social Systems published in 1967 and later followed by The Philosophy and Science of Economics, published by M.E. Sharpe in 1991.
During his two decades at MSU, Bob taught a variety of economics courses, and even introduced two new courses to the academic catalogue.
Bob and his wife Roselyn (Roz), who herself received a Ph.D. from Michigan State University and taught modern history at Eastern Michigan University and at Lansing Community College, lived in Okemos, Michigan.
Bob Solo died in 2011.